NORWAY LOBSTERS. 389 



that the usual method of assisting them was based on a mis- 

 taken principle, this gentleman undertook the establishment 

 of a fishery upon a small scale at his own expense. He 

 therefore expended a sum of 600, with wliich he procured 

 eight boats, completely equipped, and a small smack of sixteen 

 tons. The crews, consisting of thirty men, he furnished with 

 all the necessary fishing materials, paying the men weekly 

 wages ranging from nine to thirteen shillings, part of the sum 

 being in meal. The result of this experiment was, that these 

 eight boats sent to the London market in a few months as 

 many lobsters as reimbursed the original cost of the fishing 

 plant. The men and their families were thus rescued from a 

 state of semi-starvation, and are now living in comfort, with 

 plenty surrounding their dwellings ; and have, besides, the 

 satisfaction of knowing that their present independent con- 

 dition has been achieved principally by means of their own 

 well-sustained industry. 



A very large share of our lobsters is derived from Nor- 

 way, as many as 30,000 sometimes arriving from the fjords 

 in a single day. The Norway lobsters are much esteemed, 

 and we pay the Norwegians something like 20,000 a 

 year for this one article of commerce. They are brought 

 over in welled steam-vessels, and are kept in the wooden 

 reservoirs already alluded to, some of wliich may be seen 

 at Hole Haven, on the Essex side of the Thames. Once 

 upon a time, some forty years ago, one of these wooden 

 lobster-stores was run into by a Eussian frigate, whereby 

 some 20,000 lobsters were set adrift to sprawl in the muddy 

 waters of the Thames. In order that the great mass of 

 animals confined in these places may be kept upon their 

 best behaviour, a species of cruelty has to be perpetrated to 

 prevent their tearing each other to pieces : the great claw is, 

 therefore, rendered paralytic by means of a wooden peg being 

 driven into a lower joint. 



